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Venture capital firm offers ray of hope

Balderton Capital set to plough cash into tech startups

UK venture capital firm
Balderton
Capital has announced that it has secured funding of $430m (£282m) for
technology startups worldwide.

The injection will come as good news for a sector that is currently
undergoing major layoffs.

"This is a great start for the year for Balderton in what is clearly a
difficult economic environment," said Balderton partner Barry Maloney.

"Each economic cycle provides opportunities for the best entrepreneurs, and
we are excited to be able to invest in tomorrow's success stories in this our
fourth fund."

Balderton has invested in a number of notable companies since its founding
in 2000, including social networking site
Bebo, which was
sold to AOL for $850m (£572m), and open source database firm
MySQL, which
was sold to Sun Microsystems for $1bn (£673m).

Neil Ward-Dutton, an analyst at
Macehiter
Ward-Dutton, suggested that the funding will be a reality check for those
projecting doom and gloom for the industry, particularly in the area of online
services where Balderton puts most of its investments.

"Balderton has a heritage of making longer-term investments and, with that in
mind, it makes a lot of sense for them to invest now. They are not looking for
an immediate return, which is good for a quiet period," he said.